mistressofmuses

mistressofmuses @ 2026-05-22T19:40:00

2026-05-23T01:59:24Z

Insurance did indeed decline to cover my dermatology appointment, saying I did not have a valid referral (since the nurse signed it instead of the doctor.) I had called my insurance company and asked if that would be okay, and was told yes. That's the second time I've tried to be ~responsible~ and call in advance to ask if something would be covered, and the second time I've been told yes, it would not be an issue, and the second time that was not true.

Since we're heading into a holiday weekend, I'll call them on Tuesday, but I am not particularly hopeful that it will help. I called about the previous "you needed a referral" issue, was told that it should be easy to resubmit with the info that this was my PCP, was told they were doing that... and it changed nothing.

So I'm pretty well fucked, even if both biopsies come back as clear. If one or both don't... welp, guess I can wait for the melanoma to kill me, because I'm already basically a full paycheck in the hole by the time I pay for the shit they're already not covering, not even counting the few hundred I've had to shell out in the copays. ~~No, I'll figure out what I need to do to get the melanomas removed if need be, I'm sure, but fucking hell.~~

Right now I'm just very pissed off, and really am struggling to do any of the mildly responsible but low-stakes things that I was planning on. I don't want to reply to comments. I don't want to write book reviews. But I don't want to just sit here and keep being pissed off and anxious about it, either. >:/

I know I can't do anything about it until Tuesday, so I sort of want to just forget about it for a couple days, but I also know I won't.

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mistressofmuses @ 2026-05-21T19:50:00

2026-05-22T02:06:24Z

Went to breakfast with my dad today, which was nice. :) He's in town for a while working on recording.

He's doing pretty well after his various health things. He's had a few cardiac issues (though not a heart attack.) Sounds like it mostly stemmed from strain related to sleep apnea, which he's had for as long as I remember, but never wanted to treat. That's doing better, so he's back to getting some actual sleep, and that will hopefully also help the lingering heart issues. He's going in for another heart surgery sometime soon. He couldn't remember what the procedure is called, but it's inserting something into the enlarged chamber of the heart to help prevent clotting. (The explanation is a little longer, but that's the gist of it.) He's looking forward to that procedure, because then maybe he can stop taking the blood thinners he's on, because he hates them and they're expensive.

The recording seems to be going well. This is the same album project that he's been working on for a couple years now, but he's changed the whole style and tone of the project a couple of times. (Two years ago he was feeling a lot more optimistic about the world, and that has gotten to be less and less the case, which has changed what he wants for his music.) Though he says he was expecting to look at the various songs he's written and was considering and decide to scrap it all and start over. Instead, he said he's actually really happy with a lot of them, more so than he anticipated, so that's nice.

Hopefully we'll get together again sometime next week before he's on his way back to Arizona.

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Habit Tracking: Week 20 (May 10 - May 16)

2026-05-19T23:58:10Z

This week, a dryad sticker from my art friends the Atomic Pixies. It was starting to feel like we'd truly reached the warm season (and conventional wisdom is that after Mother's Day is the safe time to start gardening), but of course it got cold again after, so the feeling didn't last.

I did one slightly different thing on the layout as opposed to last week, which was drawing in the grid lines with pencil. I think I like it a little better than without the lines.

And here is the day-by-day of which things I was reading.

This was a decent week. I did get through most of what I'd wanted to. Got a good amount of reading done. Went on nice walks/hikes on both of my days off. I've also extended my at-work walks a little farther, so I'm now mostly hitting 1.5 miles per day. Still feeling happy about my break from writing, though I have also fallen behind a little on the reviews that I want to be working on. Hoping that next week is more productive in general.

Goals for the week:

I did visit my mom on Sunday <3
I read Fallen
I did not work on my reading page
I did go to my blood draw appointment
We did things outside
I worked on my reviews
I did not clean off my DVD shelf
I did water my plants
I sort of caught up on Dreamwidth, but then fell behind again
I started reading A Wizard of Earthsea

Tracked habits:

Work - 5/7
Household Maintenance - 3/7
Physical Activity - 6/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
Non-fiction Writing - 3/7 - all over 500 words, plus one additional day of less than 500
Meta Work - 2/7
Personal Writing - 4/7
Other Creative Things - 2/7
Reading - 7/7 - I finished reading Fallen, and started reading A Wizard of Earthsea. As my "side-read" I continued reading short stories from the Forward collection. Alex and I read a very little bit of Camp Damascus.
Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday had game videos in the background; Monday had weather videos and then game videos in the background; Tuesday - Friday more game videos; Saturday was paranormal and then game videos in the background.
Video Games - 0/7
Social Interaction - 6/7

Total words written: 2136 words on reviews

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Dermatology: Part 1

2026-05-19T03:32:33Z

Dermatology appointment today, and with that, all my currently scheduled doctor's visits are completed!

This was the one referral I asked for from my primary care provider, since I have a lot of family history of skin cancer, and a lot of personal history of being pale enough to glow under blacklight and getting really bad sunburns.

I was mistaken, and my copay was $75, not the $50 I was expecting. :/

The dermatologist who did the skin check was very nice.

There were two spots that she wanted to biopsy: one on my arm, and one on my scalp. I'm not surprised by the arm one, which is a bit tri-colored, but didn't know I had a weird spot on my head, ha. I'm a bit relieved that there were only two spots. (Not because I had any that I was especially concerned about, but just because of the fact I'm pretty high-risk and haven't ever been screened before.) She didn't sound like she was wildly concerned about either, but just wants to be sure. The one on my head is either two spots that have merged and are not a problem, or one really misshapen spot that is probably very much a problem.

The numbing shots were very effective, and I didn't feel the biopsying at all. I still don't really feel the arm one, but the one on the top of my head hurts, and I'm dreading the experience of brushing (and washing!) my hair, ha.

I've been instructed to buy tinted moisturizer with SPF for my face and a brimmed hat for going hiking. :[ Both probably good ideas. Ugh, "self-care."

I feel like it's a damnation of the healthcare system that I am far less worried about the prospect of either or both biopsies coming back as cancerous as I am "is my insurance covering this?" I called them in advance, and was told that yes, I can use a referral from my nurse practitioner even though she's not listed as my PCP, but I'm still very concerned they're going to deny it (considering they denied me seeing my PCP because my PCP didn't refer me to see my PCP before I had a PCP), and/or subsequent appointments, if I do need to get either of these bits removed. All I can do is wait and see at this point.

Both my nurse and the doctor I saw today end appointments with a "if you see anything concerning, or if you're worried about something, please come see us any time; we want to catch things early if they're a problem!" but like... I won't be doing that, lol. I can't shell out copays for this shit constantly! (Already feeling the same about the "please definitely make sure you do these skin checks once a year, even if the biopsies are clean. You're pretty high-risk." Like... I can theoretically afford this if my insurance covers it, but I will not have $6000 next year to pay off that deductible, so this is probably the only one I'm doing for the foreseeable future.)

I should know the results from the biopsies in a couple weeks. Since there's a holiday next week, she said that it will probably take the full two weeks. Obviously I'm hoping that I don't actually have skin cancer, but we'll find out, and then I'll know if I'm actually done with appointments for the time being.

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Today's FastCAT

2026-05-18T03:24:21Z

I had a 9 and a half hour workday, but some dogs got to go on a field trip and run. Lol

The beaft. Why her tongue so long.

And her times for today!

She has definitely seemed to settle into some fairly consistent times, which is to say "between 10 and 11 seconds." I'm happy with it, even if I do hope she breaks 10 seconds again someday!

Alex is hoping that she can get her FCAT by the end of the year. (The top title for the event. Her big fancy ribbon from a while back is for her intermediate title!) He hopes that once she's gotten the top FastCAT title, that he can do some new events with her. Maybe Rally or Barn Hunt? Though she seems to like FastCAT so well, I wouldn't want her to stop just because she got top points, ha. Maybe then we can just do fun runs, haha.

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Monday, May 11: Red Rocks

2026-05-16T04:38:27Z

On Monday we went on a hike to Red Rocks! It is a park, but because it's also a concert venue, they often close around early afternoon. We'd wanted to maybe go on a hike there a couple weeks ago, but were sunk by the early close. Monday was also an early close, but because we were up so early for my doctor's appointment, we still had plenty of time, haha.

This time we went on one of the easier trails, since our usual favorite has a few pretty steep and exhausting parts. This one was much nicer in terms of less elevation change, but it was pretty warm with nearly zero available shade, so we did end up turning around before too long. We don't want to overdo it for Bella.

A view of the amphitheater from the trail.

Some nice flowers!

Six more pictures, all plants:

Extra prickly prickly pear.

A little barrel cactus!

Some more nice flowers, and little fern fronds.

Yet different white wildflowers!

Some little blue flowers under the yucca.

Sir not appearing in the above picture: a snake! When I leaned down to look at the blue flowers, I discovered there was a snake curled around the base of the yucca under all the leaves and grass! From the bits of the tail and coil that I briefly glimpsed, I think it was a yellow bellied racer. The color was a very smooth grey-green with no visible pattern. I've seen them before, but not terribly often! It looked like it was probably a fairly respectable size, though it was hard to tell exactly how long.

A nice paintbrush!

And finally, this magpie! It landed on the fence in the parking lot as we were getting ready to leave. I set a dog treat down on the fence, which it was perfectly happy to grab before flying away.

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Pictures of Bella and of bugs:

2026-05-14T02:09:05Z

I would like you to know that Bella is a cool dog with cool stuff to do.

Three more Bella pictures:

Truly the fashiona-bull. (Ignore my arms reflected in the lenses as I tried to get the picture, ha.)

Bella would like to remind everyone that she's very tiny and small and a perfectly reasonable lapdog size.

Hiiiiiiiiiii~

Large bumblebee!

Five more pictures of bugs from my walks:

Big fuzzy caterpillar, booking it across the sidewalk.

Kind of a size comparison with my hand.

Little orange butterfly!

Big stinkbug.

Moth on some little aster flowers. :)

I didn't get a picture, but today I saw a large snake! Probably a bull snake. I heard it underneath the dry leaves and grass under one of the bushes along my walk. I watched for a little while, and saw the very tip of a nose and flickering tongue, and then watching more saw one coil in between some of the leaves. Looked about an inch in diameter, and the tongue was pretty big too, so nice sized! Happy to glimpse it, even if I wish I'd been able to get a better look.

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Habit Tracking: Week 19 (May 03 - May 09)

2026-05-13T03:52:04Z

Time for my new notebook! To break it in, I used a sticker that I'd been extra reluctant to use because I like it so well, haha. It's a magpie from "Visionary Vultures."

My layout is pretty much the same for now, though with a few differences. I didn't draw a full grid on the tracker because of the dots, but I'm not sure if I like it that way. Since each line is smaller, there's more empty space around to accommodate the sticker, but I do like that fine. The smaller lines also mean that I wound up with a lot more empty space on the second page even after making all my daily entries (which I don't post), so I wanted to find something to fill that space with something.

Since reading is the thing I'm currently putting the bulk of my free time toward, I devoted the space to that:

A chart showing which books I read on which days.

I'm not 100% sure I love it, but I also don't think there's really a better way to lay out the same information, so I'll probably keep it. I don't always read multiple books every day, though I did this week.

The week was pretty good overall. Started rough with the really depressing/distressing doctor appointment, and the snow on Wednesday sort of sucked, but otherwise everything was fine. Bella's vet visit was fine. I did a pretty good job on my to-do list, got a lot of reading done, and also kept up decently well on writing up reviews.

Goals for the week:

I did finish reading The Return of the King
We went to FastCAT on Sunday
I went to my doctor appointment (unfortunately, lol)
I did not work on my reading page
We took Bella to her vet appointment
We paid rent
I didn't clean off my DVD shelf
I did post my books read in April
I did go through my pics from the festival
I sort of caught up on Dreamwidth
I did read The Ballad of Black Tom
I got gifts for Mother's Day
We did go buy crickets
I started reading Fallen

Tracked habits:

Work - 4/7 (I took Sunday off)
Household Maintenance - 5/7
Physical Activity - 5/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
Non-fiction Writing - 4/7 - one day over 1000 words, three over 500 words, plus two additional days of less than 500
Meta Work - 5/7
Personal Writing - 7/7
Other Creative Things - 1/7
Reading - 7/7 - I finished reading The Return of the King, I read The Ballad of Black Tom, and started reading Fallen, I finished Heated Rivalry as my ebook side-read, and then started reading some short stories from the Forward collection. Alex and I started reading Camp Damascus.
Attention to Media - 6/7 - Sunday watched storm chase, exploration, and paranormal videos in the background; Tuesday had some news and later game videos in the background; Wednesday had storm chase and later game videos in the background; Thursday had explore and then game videos in the background; Friday had storm chasing in the background, watched a camping video, listened to music, watched game videos; Saturday had exploration and then game videos in the background.
Video Games - 0/7
Social Interaction - 5/7

Total words written: 3683 on reviews.

And here is the new notebook, which is so much more plain than my previous one, ha:

Plain green, a little darker than the picture makes it look.

I like it for being hardcover, and I wanted to give a dot grid notebook a try instead of lined. It also has two ribbon bookmarks, haha.

Trying to decide if I should decorate the cover with some of the extra loved stickers, the ones that I'm still reluctant to use even on the page layouts. We'll see! (But then, do I add them all at once? Do I add them periodically when I feel like it? Do I put them on there at semi-random, or do I try to have some overarching aesthetic? Oh, such choices!)

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Misc stuff:

2026-05-12T03:39:41Z

I did get to see my mom for a bit yesterday. I had to work, but she and Taylor went on what sounds like a great hike to Castlewood Canyon. (There are tiger salamanders in the visitor center! I'm so jealous; the visitor center is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so we've never gotten to go in! Salamanders and their .____. faces are the best.)

After work I went over to hang out and chat for a while. I got her copies of Through Gates of Garnet and Gold (this year's Wayward Children novella) and Platform Decay (the new Murderbot book.)

It was nice to hang out for a little while! She showed me pictures from the hike yesterday, and of some of the other birds she's seen and such recently. They had a pretty heavy branch come down on the roof during the snow, but luckily it doesn't seem to have damaged anything. Her eye surgery was super easy and minor, and it basically just looks (and feels) slightly irritated, but is barely even noticeable.

I bought my mom a copy of Platform Decay, which just came out. I had preordered it for myself back in March using a birthday gift card to Barnes & Noble.

I do not yet have a copy of Platform Decay.
My copy has been stuck in UPS hell for the last week. It had an "estimated delivery" of May 7th, but has had no new scans since it departed a warehouse in Missouri on the 7th. They just kept shifting the estimation up day by day, despite having no new scans.

Finally at 11pm last night it got an arrival scan at a USPS facility, though UPS wouldn't say where. (Though it got two additional arrival scans today, per UPS.)

Checking USPS instead, it tells me that the arrival last night was the most recent scan (and there weren't additional scans today), and also that that was at their regional hub in Reno, Nevada.

Why. Why did my book go from Missouri to Nevada? I'm in between those!

I want to buy books from sources other than Amazon. I use Amazon for a fair number of things, but I do try to use alternatives when I can. But man, it feels like every time I try to, I end up punished by not getting the item until a week+ after I was supposed to. I get that free two-day shipping has spoiled me and created an unrealistic expectation in general, but even accounting for that! Every time something gets misrouted, or apparently sits in a warehouse for days before being picked up, or the delivery person decides fuck it at the end of their shift and marks it undeliverable for some nonsense reason ("driveway was blocked?" well, there isn't one of those, so, I guess?)

It's not too painful for this book at the moment, because I haven't even started the Murderbot reread yet, because I haven't gotten there on the TBR yet, so it doesn't matter, beyond just the annoyance of the thing not showing up when it's supposed to. Assuming it does eventually arrive, it's fine. But I pre-ordered a few other books that I might be more eager to read immediately, and I will resent having to wait a week or two after release date to even get to start them, when I know I could have paid less money to a less moral company and gotten my much closer to instant gratification. >:/

But also, I am glad that it's coming by USPS instead of UPS, theoretically. USPS at least doesn't leave stuff in the lobby of the apartments to get immediately stolen.

Our katydid eggs from last year seem to be no-gos. :( It seems likely that they didn't get quite enough humidity where they were at in my mom's garage. Alas. We'll keep an eye on them for a little bit longer, but at this point it's probably unlikely.

Today I did go do my re-do blood work. (I think earlier I'd said this week was my dermatology appointment and the blood draw was next week, but I'd gotten them mixed up.) They only had to stab me once this time, which is nice! And this time I did know about it in advance, so I did do my fasting. We'll see if it still pings me for high cholesterol and triglycerides. I'm sort of anticipating that it will... but I'm trying! I'm trying to get the stupid exercise and eat a little better and get more fiber and not go to the corner store for snacks when I'm at work and hydrate more and I'm, ugh, taking ~vitamins~ and shit.

After they stole my blood, we did go on a short hike, though we turned around before too long because it was sunny with no shade and we didn't want to overdo it for Bella. (I felt fine, so maybe my endurance is improving!) Eventually I'll get pictures posted, lol.

Even though I'd felt fine on the hike, we were all apparently pretty wiped out? Maybe just because we got up so early for my appointment, but Alex, Bella, and I all fell asleep for several hours once we got home, haha. I was especially surprised that Bella cuddled up between us for a long nap, ha. Usually she gets up to do her own thing if we fall asleep.

Not feeling terribly motivated to do much of anything, ha. I have posts and comments here to catch up on, I have my reading page in my tracker to work on, I have cleaning projects at home to do... But I don't wanna. Perhaps I will rally and get something done, or perhaps I will lie to myself about feeling much more inclined to do more tomorrow, ha. I do have a headache that I can't quite shake, so maybe tonight is not the night for Being Productive.

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Ritual Noize Fest

2026-05-10T02:56:48Z

The inaugural Ritual Noize Fest!

I took last weekend off to go to Ritual Noize Fest! I've been excited for it since it was announced last fall. There was a bit of a lineup change, as I'd said before, which was a shame for multiple reasons, but the excitement remained!

It was an excellent time!

The venue is "ReelWorks" which is a large venue attached to Tracks, a fairly well-known gay club. We used to be down there fairly often, back when Tracks had a regular goth night. (It was also baby's first club when I went out to celebrate my 21st birthday!)

...yikes has the whole area changed. We'd noted that the most recent time we went there for a concert, which was a couple years ago. That was the first time we'd been down post-Covid, so it was kind of a big shock to see a bunch of pricey condos had replaced the old warehouses.

At that point a couple years ago it felt like it had maybe become maximum bougie, but it has gotten so much bougier. There are basically no warehouses left at all, and all the weird little art studios and makerspaces and mostly-illegal housing collectives are long gone. Patagonia and Arcteryx have competing storefronts across the street from each other now. There's a bank. Everything has a fucking QR code. There are $750k condos. We parked in the bougiest parking garage I have ever seen in my life. (The whole thing locks down completely, you have to scan your ticket QR code to get back in (god help you if you don't have it), there's a lounge area?? though it was closed for the weekend. Like... I AM glad to not have my car broken into or the catalytic converter stolen, but...)

BUT. We did make it down there, and did quite a bit of pre-gaming in the car before heading in, anticipating fuck-off expensive well drinks.

It turned out that well drinks were not nearly as expensive as anticipated, which was dangerous. I had... more to drink than I've had in the last five years, pretty sure. Delightfully, I was able to stay pleasantly drunk for much of the show, but never got to the point of feeling sick or like I was missing what was going on.

I swore that I would just... magically remember the setlists. I did not remember the setlists. I was quite drunk.

We arrived partway through Hex Cassette's set (two pictures):

Hard to tell when he's on the floor, but he is very tall. I hadn't ever seen him, though I know I've seen him listed as an opener before! Wasn't my favorite sound, but he was good. It was still clearly early, and not much of a crowd had shown up, but he did start the slowest mosh circle possible, which was entertaining.

I could not find his setlist posted online.

A net full of blow-up dolls lurks ominously above the pit.

Then it was Whorticulture's turn, which was probably who I was second-most-excited to see!

Two more pics of Whorticulture, plus Plack Blague:

During "Faust."

It's standard that at some point he will end up stripping down to the crop-top, which he will generally acknowledge. So we did get "YES, THE CROP TOP COMES OUT NOW!" shouted before they started playing "Crucify."

As our local openers, they only got to play four songs (;_;) which I DO actually remember:
- Within/Without
- Faust
- Crucify
- Make Me Dead (live debut of their new song, just released a couple days before!)

"Within/Without" is an older one, and I was glad that they played it! One of my favorites, and I think it got the slot that "Benefits of Torture" would usually get, but I like it a little better. "Faust" is new-ish, and quite possibly my favorite of all their songs, so I was very glad it got played. "Crucify" is a cover of the Tori Amos song, but I think one of their most popular (and always comes with the crop top, so.) "Make Me Dead" is brand new, and I forgot to go listen to it in advance, so it was my first time hearing it!

I'm not unbiased, because they are a local group that I really like, but I think Whorticulture deserved higher billing. They're damn good. (Not that any of the other groups AREN'T good, or didn't deserve their spot on the bill. I just think Whorticulture deserves more, haha.)

Then we went over to Whorticulture's merch table, where I was delighted to discover that they did a new run of their "Goth as Fuck" shirts. (It's a play on the "Queer as Folk" logo, and I love it.) They sold out of those long ago, so I was glad for another chance to get one.)

Our time hanging out by the merch and then heading to get drinks meant we missed most of Plack Blague's set. I'm not familiar with him, but what I heard was good! Gay leather industrial-style, ha.

I didn't find his setlist online either, though as we were heading past the floor to get another drink, he did announce something to the effect of "You know what turns me on? MAN! ON! MAN!" so I do know that was one of his songs that got played!

Refortified with drinks, we managed to get back up toward the front-ish for Julien K. They were great! Ended up being one of my favorite sets from the night.

Three more pictures:

His goggles were so bright. Blindingly!

I am frustrated that I wasn't able to find their setlist either!

They did close out with Blue Monday, which surprised me, since I just sort of assumed they wouldn't want to hearken back to Orgy, but I was certainly not disappointed!

Their much better picture, ha.

Then, Aesthetic Perfection! (The other group I was most excited to see.)

Three more pictures:

I DO have a setlist for them!
- Gods & Gold
- S E X
- Rhythm + Control
- Antibody (call me a basic bitch, but this is one of my favorites and I basically knock myself over jumping to it every time.)
- Sorrow (huge tonal shift from Antibody, but also a fave)
- Summer Goth (Alex hates this song, lol. I find it terribly relatable.)
- Self Inflicted
- Into the Void
- We Bring the Beat
- Never Enough (another fave)
- Schadenfreude
- The Great Depression (I still think this was a perfect opening song, per the previous show I saw them at. Starting off with "HEY YOU MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH" is just so good. It's fine as a later song, too.)
- Love Like Lies (This one we got to pick between two choices. I was rooting for Spit It Out instead, but ah well.)

Lords of Acid!

Five more pictures:

Okay, maybe this is an unpopular opinion... but I think Lords of Acid is better in recordings than live. Their live shows are fun, and energetic, and they do a lot of stuff, but the showmanship is more of a draw than the music when they're live. The sound seemed muddled (which I don't think was a sound issue with the venue; none of the other acts were hard to hear), so other than a few words, it was hard to really hear them, even though it was all very loud. Alex saw them a few years ago, and he had the same impression that time. But! It was definitely fun!

Alex did turn to me and ask "So... do they just replace the frontwoman every couple years?" as this is a different singer than the last time they came through.
I told him "Yeah, they need a New Designated Hottie!"

(That is me being a little dismissive. It's not untrue, but all the Designated Hotties are also very talented!)

Current Hottie Carla Harvey can headbang like a motherfucking champ.

(Thank you, nameless support roadie.)
(The net of blowup dolls lurks ominously.)

Inviting women up on stage for "Pussy," of course.

And then it was time for "Rubber Doll," so...

THE BLOWUP DOLLS RELEASED!

Except this one. :'( The saddest story: For retrieval: Blowup doll, never fallen.

The Lords of Acid setlist:
- Scrood Bi U
- Do What You Wanna Do
- Lover
- Drink My Honey
- Mister Machoman
- The Most Wonderful Girl
- Pussy
- The Crablouse
- Rough Sex
- Rubber Doll
- Encore: I Sit on Acid

And finally, She Wants Revenge.

(Still wish it had been VNV, even though that would have been even more dramatic whiplash after Lords of Acid, lmao. Glad we did have another headliner willing and able to step in! First chance I've had to see She Wants Revenge, so that's cool, too.)

Two more pictures:

I was suddenly struck with "Wait, shit. How many She Wants Revenge songs do I even know??" Turns out, a lot more than I thought, ha.

I've never been super into them beyond what got played at the club, though I was happy for them when they had a sudden surge of popularity after American Horror Story: Hotel.

Very red.

She Wants Revenge setlist:
- Black Liner Run
- Sister
- Written in Blood
- These Things
- Sarah Says
- Someone Must Get Hurt
- A Little Bit Harder Now
- Your Love
- Rachel
- These Things Happen in Threes
- Red Flags and Long Nights
- Do No Harm
- Black Wax, Our Love
- Gossip & Drugs
- Out of Control
- Tear You Apart

The most difficult part of leaving was the damn parking garage, lol. Several people were struggling to get their QR things to scan, or having a hard time paying, and it held up the whole line quite a lot, lol.

The show was very fun, but man was I tired. We headed home, tossed a frozen pizza into the oven, and devoured the whole thing. Drank some water, took some preemptive ibuprofen, and went to bed, lol.

Also extremely glad that I had taken Sunday off as well, because other than going to Bella's FastCAT, I pretty much wanted to spend Sunday asleep too, haha. (Though considering how much we drank vs. how little we typically do, neither of us was at all hungover, which was a pleasant surprise.)

This did really make me miss going out clubbing, which is usually my feeling after going to concerts of this genre. Alex... not so much. He said he had fun this time, aided by the alcohol, but his anxiety has gotten worse to a point that he dreads trying to go out. That's a shame, because I'd love to go out at least once a month or so, but I don't want to coordinate going solo, and I don't want to drag him out to be miserable. Alas!

I really do hope that Ritual Noize Fest continues beyond just this first year, and if so, I really look forward to future lineups!

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Books read in April

2026-05-08T03:46:36Z

April was the most successful reading month of the year, so far! (At least by number of books read.) I finished seven books this month, plus a bonus short story.

I’ve been trying to put more time toward reading, particularly since I’ve decided to formally take a break from writing. (I didn’t make that decision until partway through the month, but even so.) I’m not always able to read as much as I’d like, either because there are still other things I need to get done, or because there are other things going on (loud TV, etc.) that prevent me from focusing, but I am still glad that it’s something I’m able to do more of. (Especially on my days off, I’ve read a lot in some cases!)

I’m still not fully “caught up” from my slow January/February, but I’m doing okay. I’d hoped to be farther down the list than I am, but I’m pleased with what I have read, and I’m pleased that it’s largely been at a pace that has let me enjoy what I’m reading, too.

I love this cover! The siren tail within the skull shape is great.
Our Bloody Pearl by D. N. Bryn
Book 1 of These Treacherous Tides (but it appears to be the only book so far, though there are others in the same universe)
2018
Fantasy (subgenre: steampunk) - m/nb queerplatonic relationship, background f/f - ebook novel
3.5/5

Pearl, a siren, has spent too long—how long, they aren’t even sure—in captivity, trapped by the pirate captain Kian. Kian is the only woman to ever manage to neutralize siren voices, and she has a particular hatred for their kind. When a rival crew boards and raids Kain’s ship, Pearl is part of the spoils. The new captain, Dejean, seems utterly unlike Kian, more interested in helping Pearl to heal than keeping them controlled and confined. Their time with Kian has left Pearl paralyzed and malnourished, unable to survive in the open ocean even if they could escape. Humans have never been more than enemies or occasional prey; can Pearl trust Dejean and his friends’ intentions? And if they do, is there hope for anything more than animosity between their species?

My thoughts, slight spoilers:

I’ve had this book in my kindle for a really long time. (2018 doesn’t seem like it should be that long ago… and then I realize it’s ~~six~~ nope, eight, years ago and the passage of time kneecaps me again.) I’m fairly sure I bought it back when I was sort of trying to engage more with the “writeblr” community on tumblr years ago, and wanted to support the author and their independent publishing, so bought it as a new release… and then never got around to reading it.

The book was more enjoyable than implied by the months that it took me to read it…

The good:
This book feels nicely polished. There may have been a few typos, but honestly nothing that stuck out horribly to me or was bad enough to throw me out. This felt especially notable to me for an indie published work, but honestly I’ve been increasingly unimpressed with editorial standards for professionally published work, too.
The setting is fun: pirates and steampunk ships and sirens!
I like Dejean and Pearl coming up with their own sign language to bridge the language gap. (Pearl understands human speech, but the humans do not understand sirens.)*
I am always excited to see queerplatonic relationships being portrayed.** Dejean and Pearl’s relationship is quite sweet.
The development of prosthetics to allow Pearl to return to the water—and the way they eventually utilize those in ways other than intended to give them an edge when it comes to some of the conflict—was really cool.
I actually felt okay with the base conflict between sirens and humans. I typically very strongly dislike “it was just a misunderstanding!” as a solution to an extremely broad conflict, but it worked better here than usual. Communication is an ongoing theme in the book, and it’s a case in which it actually does seem reasonable in a way that miscommunication often doesn’t, because it’s beyond a simple language barrier or just misconstrued tone and gets into broader aspects of culture.

The neutral:
When I got into reading the book it was a pretty breezy and quick read… but it would also easily fall out of sight out of mind, and didn’t really ever drag me back.
** While I’ve listed the relationship between Dejean and Pearl as queerplatonic, because that’s what the author calls it, and while I like a good queerplatonic relationship… to be honest, I’d say it reads as more overtly romantic to me. It’s definitely not sexual, and I know that queerplatonic can be a fairly nebulous category, but I think it still felt romantic. This did not bother me, but I don’t know that I would have called the relationship queerplatonic without knowing that was the intent.
The story very strongly skews toward being aggressively affirming, ha. There’s a lot of hashtag-representation, in terms of different queer identities, mental health, physical disability… I definitely don’t consider any of that to be bad, but at times it really did feel like it was shoving YOU ARE VALID!!! at me. Like… I’m happier for it to exist, and I can imagine it really mattering to someone, or helping someone to feel seen… it just sort of wasn’t for me.

The less good:
* I like the characters coming up with sign language to communicate with each other… but I don’t think the execution always quite worked. We’re in Pearl’s perspective, and so we as readers do understand everything that Pearl is trying to communicate, both verbally and through sign. Dejean frequently seems to respond to both aspects of their communication, when he really shouldn’t understand the verbal parts. The communication issues are also definitely never felt by the reader, since they’re pretty thoroughly one-sided, and the other character seems to fully understand things even in cases where he shouldn’t.
Along with the language, what human concepts Pearl understood or did not occasionally broke my immersion a bit. Most of the time, it seemed like Pearl understood basically everything very thoroughly and completely… and then would refer to alcohol as “human happy juice,” which just felt so weirdly childish and at-odds with their typical level of understanding.
I really wish I’d liked Muriel’s character more. She’s the engineer who helps to design Pearl’s prosthetics, and is in a relationship with Dejean’s first mate. She’s sort of a bubbly comic-relief character, and I found her grating, the way I usually do the comic relief sidekick type. I liked her fine in her more serious moments, but the scenes that seemed intended to be funny were more annoying to me than anything else.
I feel like the book goes a little bit too out of the way to absolve everyone to some degree. It sort of flirts with an “everyone is a monster!” theme, with Pearl contrasting Kian’s abuse and their own previous willingness to prey on humans… but ultimately seems to settle on a “hurt people hurt people” conclusion, where basically all the bad things are tragic but sort of understandable. It’s not terrible, so much as it just felt like it checked itself a bit too much. I wouldn’t say it was narratively excusing monstrous actions, but it did seem to soften them.

I feel like this was definitely a book for someone—maybe many someones—but just not quite for me. I still had fun reading it, and enjoyed the story, setting, and characters.

My classic covers, haha. (Surprisingly hard to find decent images of!)
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings
1954
Fantasy - physical novel
5/5

Hobbits have long lived in peace in the Shire, content to be separate from the goings-on of the rest of Middle Earth. Unfortunately, conflict in the world is brewing. After Bilbo Baggins departs the Shire on his 111th birthday, he leaves most of his worldly possessions to his beloved nephew, Frodo Baggins… including the magical ring he obtained on his grand adventure. The wizard Gandalf eventually recognizes the ring for what it is, the One Ring, created by the dark lord Sauron to consolidate his own power in his quest to rule the world and all its people. Frodo embarks on a quest to bring the One Ring to the Elvish city of Rivendell, where a council can decide what is to be done with it.
Ultimately, the decision is made to send Frodo to destroy the ring, taking it back to Mordor to throw it into the fires from which it was forged. Accompanying him will be a fellowship: his Hobbit friends, Sam, Pippin, and Merry; Men, Aragorn and Boromir; Dwarf, Gimli; Elf, Legolas; and Gandalf. The journey to Rivendell was perilous, but the journey beyond it will be far more so.

My thoughts:

Again, I feel like there is very little for me to say at this point. It’s not like there’s anything that hasn’t been said hundreds or thousands of times, haha.
I did have a much better time reading it now than I did back in high school. I appreciated it more, and didn’t get bogged down with the language and style.

The thing that stuck out the most to me, no surprise, is the depth of the world. The extensive and integrated history! The languages! It is extremely impressive and rich, and is certainly what most people come away from the series talking about. Somewhat ironically, that was both what I wanted to experience and what I had the hardest time with when I was younger.

Random observations:
- I did not remember how long a time the beginning spans, how long it is between Bilbo leaving The Shire and Frodo taking on the quest. (Seventeen years!?)
- I get why so many adaptations skip the whole Tom Bombadil section, and I recall being baffled by it on my high school attempt, but I actually liked that bit this time. It’s definitely weird, but I like having that weird detail to the world. Just a random somewhat unexplained freak that might be a deity or some nonsense. Like you do.
- Same with the barrow wights, which were creepy, and I liked having a creepy evil thing that’s not completely directly related to the current Evil. (I do realize that It’s All Connected in the broader lore and history, but this was less so than a lot of things.)
- The escalation of stakes and threat is pretty good, I think. Obviously, I’m not going into this series blind, so I do know exactly how bad it’s going to get for our hero and his companions… so I know that the threats early on are relatively mild compared to what they will encounter. Those threats are still very real—it’s still ringwraiths!—but all the dangers, even at the beginning while still in The Shire, feel believably terrifying.
- The emphasis on periods of rest is interesting to me. (I know that this, and the “homely houses” and all are common points of discussion and whatnot.) But the periods of rest that the characters take, regaining their strength and their will to continue onward stands out to me as one of the things I’d say I see least in more modern fantasy. Sometimes there might be a period of physical recovery that the characters have to go through, but even that is often grudging and hurried, with the sense that every minute spent idle is a wasted one. Instead, even when faced with pressing quests, the characters do take the time when calm is offered: with Tom Bombadil, in Rivendell, in Lorien.
- The settings did really give me the “I want to be there” feeling this time around.
- Again, not a unique observation, but another thing that makes this feel different from a lot of the imitating high fantasy that I’ve read, and that I often also forget, is how… almost post-apocalyptic aspects of the world feel. Not in the “zombie wasteland” sense, but in the sense of everything being surrounded by the ruins of that impressively deep history. There’s a preoccupation with previous glory days, of times of heroes and great power in the First and Second Ages… Rather than this epic conflict being the time of heroes and great power (despite what it may later be viewed as.) Obviously this conflict includes heroes and magic and good vs evil and impossible creatures… but with the context around it being this sort of internal mythologizing of a past that was even more all of the above. Artifacts that are still sought after and utilized, but that no one knows how to make any longer. Heroes that some of the long-lived beings of the current time knew or are descended from, yet no longer feel a hope to emulate. Ruins of cities and towers and roads and tombs of long-forgotten empires.

I really enjoyed getting to read this and appreciate it this time around.

(Utterly irrelevant: my copy of the book is utterly trashed, haha. It lived in the bottom of my high school backpack while I was trying to get through it, and is missing part of the cover, with other bits of the cover taped on, the corners of pages sometimes missing, and almost all curled. I managed to uncurl most of the pages as I read, but damn.)

A good cyberpunk-y cover.
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein
2024
Science fiction (subgenres: cyberpunk, noir, post-apocalyptic, queer) - f/f, f/nb - ebook novella
4.5/5

Dora gets a visit that she’d never wanted: one of her friends from the commune she used to be a member of, showing up to tell her that her ex-girlfriend, Kay, is dead. Dora, a sometimes private investigator, goes to see Kay’s body… and discovers that the “accidental overdose” may have been a murder. This is even more of a betrayal to Dora, because she turned her back on the commune—and on her relationship with Kay—because the commune refused to compromise their ideals in order to improve their security and safety for their members. As Dora investigates the commune and the surrounding parts of the city, she discovers potential corruption and conspiracy far deeper than she had guessed. Someone is very interested in preventing her from finding the answers, even sending clones of her pre-transition self to assassinate her.

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this one! I liked the overall vibe. Its very classic cyberpunk noir detective, just make it queer(er).

The good things:
The core idea of a trans person interacting with pre-transition clones adds, I think, an interesting additional dimension to the “usual” sci-fi exploration of clones and what that can mean for identity/nature vs nurture/individuality/self-determination/etc.
This felt like a very believable apocalypse. It’s fairly near-future, in a setting where everything has slowly devolved into further political and economic fragmentation. It isn’t an apocalyptic wasteland so much as the kind of “new normal” that usually comes with and after disaster. Parts of it seem pretty awful, but also very plausible for a setting where national government has lost functional control, where almost all services have been privatized, where corporations control whole areas and can move on and leave everyone in the lurch. It feels like a place it would be easy and (mostly) plausible to reach. (At least socially, if not necessarily the tech side.)
I appreciated the… fairness, I suppose, toward the commune. It’s certainly not a utopia, and while their idealism can be frustrating and naive, there are good qualities to the group as well. Weighing community ideals vs safety, and different characters coming down on different sides of that debate, makes sense and is the sort of conflict that’s inevitable. On the whole I think the story does a decent job with ambiguity and complexity: being nostalgic for something while recognizing its flaws; reflecting on how terrible something was while wishing it had been different; figuring out what compromises to make in order to achieve a necessary end. The characters themselves also fall into this category in a lot of ways.

The neutral:
While I liked how quick a read this was—read it in two days!—and I think that the novella length kept it moving on at a very fast pace, I wouldn’t have minded it being a little longer. I think a few things could have been fleshed out a little more in a longer work, and it would have been beneficial. But… “wish there was more” isn’t really much of a criticism, because I don’t think the shorter length was a bad thing.

The less good:
Fucking typos! While they weren’t the worst, there were at least two that stuck out to me, because they were incorrect real words that mean something very different than the intended thing. Talking about a corporation wanting a “complaint” workforce. A comment toward the very end about no “stream” coming up from the vents on the street. Obviously not stuff that would get caught by spellcheck, but man I wish I could be a beta reader just to try and catch these sorts of things.

Legolas' luscious blond hair! The romance novel vibes!
The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
Book 2 of The Lord of the Rings
1954
Fantasy - physical novel
5/5

The Fellowship—the alliance of Men, Hobbits, an Elf, and a Dwarf, accompanying The Ring Bearer on his quest—has been sundered. Boromir has fallen, after temptation by The One Ring; Frodo and Sam have struck off on their own, Frodo no longer wishing to bring the others on what feels like a hopeless quest; Merry and Pippin have been captured by Saruman’s force of orcs and uruk-hai; leaving Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli to determine which path to follow.
The three choose to pursue Merry and Pippin, hoping to rescue them. They get drawn into further conflict in the country of Rohan, where Saruman has focused much of his attention and immediate plans for conquest.
Frodo and Sam, somewhat reluctantly, join with Gollum (now calling himself Sméagol), as he promises he can get them into Mordor by a secret route.

My thoughts, one extra picture:

As before, I feel like there’s very little that I can offer in way of a review!

But please do appreciate the cover contrasted with my totally rad movie bookmark!

One thing that surprised me, or at least that remained consistently noticeable throughout, even having seen this very thing remarked upon, was how much emphasis there is on hope vs despair. Those feelings, and which one is dominant for the characters at any time, often has so much more impact on them and the experience of success vs failure than the actual circumstances they’re facing. This is even directly mentioned in reference to Hobbits, after Merry and Pippin escape, about how despite everything they’re able to immediately switch to fairly lighthearted conversation with each other, which would potentially be strange or off putting for others. Keeping a sense of hope is important and matters every time it comes up, and despair (especially for Frodo, but also the other characters) is such a constant danger in and of itself. (It also ties in a bit to what I said about Fellowship, and the importance of rest; often times, resting and finding solace with others is something that renews hope.)

Okay. So. I sort of wondered if I was going to see the romantic overtones to some of the character interactions that many, many people do in these books. If I had been able to get into the books as a teen I’m sure that I would have, but I wasn’t completely sure whether I would now. The shipping goggles are a little less firmly attached than they once were.
I Do See It, lol.
Legolas and Gimli’s matching “you comfort me, (you weirdo) (affectionate)” speeches? Their promises to come back to the area for some shared sightseeing (to show off to each other the specific places that they themselves were most charmed and awed by, even though the other found those places off putting.) Just get married.
Sam talking about his love for Frodo being responsible for the sort of etherial way he sees him at times. Sam then protecting Frodo from Shelob and it literally being textually compared to an animal protecting its mate? Come on.
Sorry not sorry I’m apparently too queer to read it as all platonic.

I won’t say it was “surprising,” but it felt different than a lot of more modern stories to have the book so split between different characters’ paths, despite the sections covering the same spans of time. Getting Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli’s part mostly separate from Merry and Pippin’s up until they rejoin each other, and those parts completely split off from Frodo, Sam, and Gollum’s part was interesting. Now I think it would be almost guaranteed to alternate chapters between each group, whether to keep the different paths “fresh,” or just to keep them anchored at similar points along the timeline. Having grown so used to genre fiction alternating between different characters/perspectives, it felt almost novel (which is an obviously silly thing to feel about such a classic work) to know that multiple groups were off doing things, but to follow one at a time. I think it was certainly a good choice; it does a lot to emphasize Frodo’s comparative isolation, how truly separate the rest of the conflict now is from his quest. If we’d been bouncing back and forth, it wouldn’t have had the same impact.

I still deeply want to know why anyone decided that they should definitely trust a dude named fucking Wormtongue as a royal advisor. What the hell, guys.

I really like Faramir. Also love the vague hints that he’s got Some Magical Shit going on with him, which I had not really remembered. It’s not a surprise, per se; it’s been talked about that the Stewards of Gondor have some distant blood from those long-forgotten heroes/greater men and such. Still, hadn’t remembered it, and liked it.

Looking forward to Return of the King!

I really love the design and the colors of the cover.
Be the Sea by Clara Ward
2024
Science fiction (subgenre: climate) - demisexual protagonist, background f/f and m/m/f/f/nb/nb - ebook novel
3/5

67 year old marine biologist Wend has always been different. Between growing up a child of a single parent, being nonbinary, neurodivergent, and somewhere on the demisexual spectrum, they’ve often struggled to be fully understood. Despite, or maybe because of this, they’ve always strived to live their life as authentically as possible. When they come aboard the boat of photographer Viola Yang, it’s in part a chance to get to Hawai’i while studying the ocean on the journey there, but more important to Wend is a bid for connection. They are hoping this will be an opportunity to be understood by someone who may be uniquely positioned to do so.
After arriving in Hawai’i, Wend is unexpectedly given the chance to reconnect with multiple people from their past. This presents the potential for a promising new future, both personally and professionally. When Wend starts studying a plastic-eating bacteria they observed at several points on their journey, it becomes clear that someone is trying to suppress the research… going so far as to threaten everything Wend could hope to build.

My thoughts, some spoilers:

This is one that I came away with mixed feelings about.

Good things:
The bits talking about marine biology were cool. I’m not an expert, but it felt like it was well-researched and interesting.
Also in terms of the science, this felt like a believable place for things to be in a few decades; it’s realistic in that there are both good and bad things in terms of conservation. In some ways it’s being taken more seriously on a global scale, but some global goals have failed to be met, and the failures that are currently happening in the real world have not been reversed.
The general conceit of characters being able to astral project to see things, but also inhabit the bodies and behaviors of creatures in dreams is interesting! Along with the marine biology bits, those bits of Wend “being” different creatures were cool, and the way it blended their human observations and the instincts of the animals was neat.
Once the sort of espionage plot started up, it held my attention and made me want to know what would happen next.
I really do like super diverse works and worlds, so I appreciate queerness and neurodiversity being treated as perfectly normal and standard things! I also appreciate those things still be acknowledged even when presented as normal, and the ways in which those things can be alienating or difficult to navigate. (Too often I feel like works that treat those things as “normal” also skew in favor of making them therefore “irrelevant” in a way that I don’t like.)
A few of the descriptions of implemented green architecture sound lovely and like things I hope will someday be real and commonplace.

The less good:
Okay. So, as much as I love the many, many different types of queerness and neurodivergence in this story, it felt extremely “instructive” in a way I really do not mesh with. It felt like 101 post after 101 post in some cases. Perhaps I would have felt differently if I was less familiar with some of what was being talked about, but instead it felt like I was being talked at rather than reading a story. Breaking the flow of everything to describe what a particular identity means, or multiple times to go into explanations of when and why someone might be interested in non-sexual petplay as a kink just didn’t work for me.
There were similarly explanatory passages about other things, where it feels like characters are spitting out quick search result definitions for something. One of the characters cooks something using jackfruit and then says “jackfruit is high in fiber, vitamins C and A, several minerals, and antioxidants. Besides, it’s a great substitute for meat in old recipes, because of the texture.” Not untrue, but felt really awkward.
A lot of the ways queerness was talked about also broke my immersion in the near-future setting, because so much of the language was extremely current-modern. The language used, and the way that queerness is discussed is extremely different now in 2026 than it was even just a few years ago. That was different than in the mid 2000s-early 2010s when I was in high school and college. At that point, things were different than the 90s, which were different from the 70s and 80s, etc. Lampshading it by talking about “all the words the millennials added to public discussion” and “now you sound like a millennial” and repeatedly calling things “millennial terminology” really doesn’t keep it from breaking immersion for me. (And sure… there’s an argument that Wend is in their 60s, but would stick to the vocabulary and language that they first utilized as a younger adult, when they were first learning to describe their identity… but that’s not how it felt in-context. They’re 67 in 2039 when the book is set, so not a millennial, and this didn’t feel like the character’s preferred terminology so much as the author’s, especially because every character uses these same terms and definitions. It also contributed to making Wend feel much more like a person in their 30s than approaching 70, and I found myself having to repeatedly remind myself of their age, though perhaps that was a me problem.) I do recognize that this is a tricky thing, because trying to invent new “future” terms often feels extremely silly at best, and isn’t really a good option. I think it might have just felt less obvious if it wasn’t being pointed out so often. (“Millennial” shows up nine times in the book, almost always as part of the phrase “millennial terminology” or “millennial vocabulary.”)
Communication and the desire for it (particularly Wend’s desire to be understood) is a constant theme in the story. I recognize that in some ways, Wend’s experiences with Matt’s polycule, and their very literal and explanatory communication with each other is a fantasy, the same way the green architecture mall full of vegan restaurants and sensory-friendly clothing companies is. Even recognizing that, and even as someone who thinks that people in real life would benefit by being very upfront about what they mean and what they want… characters constantly stating for themselves or for others exactly, literally how they feel and why does not work well for me as a reader. It comes across as awkwardly clinical, and honestly sort of condescending.
A character saying that he would hug Wend if he could (because they have already said they don’t wish to be hugged, which he understands), prompts another character to then say “He’s telling you because it’s a primary emotional response for him, wanting to express care that way, not because he wants to pressure anyone for physical contact.” I’d rather have that go unspoken than be treated like a therapy checklist.
The book is a bit excessively vegan. Mostly with food, but with other things too. (I’m curious about all the “vegan” fabrics that were mentioned, because in the real world, that almost always means plastic, but the book is even more aggressively (and understandably) anti-plastic.) It does make sure to state that in a blackmail photo of a character in kink gear, that he is wearing a “leather-like” collar, ha.
But my problem is not actually with the veganism itself! My issue is pettier. Almost all the characters are vegan, several of them like cooking, and there’s a lot of description of all the food that they’re making vegan versions of. (And honestly, a lot sounds tasty! I love when stories describe amazing food!) But… when inclusivity and providing accommodations for every possible sensory preference that someone may have is so heavily emphasized, to the point of almost feeling off-putting at times, it’s ironic that every scene with food was a reminder that “ah, yes… my partner would quite possibly be immediately sent into anaphylaxis just walking into the room, and I’d frankly be concerned about how much cross-contamination was present on myself if I spent any time there.” (It’s tree nuts. Tree nuts are a life-threatening allergy for him, and almost everything is made with tree nuts as the substitution for non-vegan ingredients.) It’s FINE. The book is not attacking me or my partner, and is in fact a work of fiction, and these things are not problems for the characters. It just felt like a very ironic reminder that the loving inclusivity of this queer and neurodiverse utopia would Not Be For Us, even as queer neurodivergents ourselves.
Also, I said before that once the espionage plot kicks in, with Wend discovering that their research is being prevented and sabotaged, that I was a lot more engaged. Unfortunately, that’s more than halfway through the book, and I found that first half a struggle to get through. And it’s a long book —600-some pages—so that first half wasn’t short. The first half (and much of the second) is very much about character interaction, and character introspection, and eventually some character conflict… but it hadn’t grabbed me enough to really care about any of that until there was something external impacting them.
I also feel like I never fully understood why the espionage bit was happening. There was a bit of a motive given (that this other group of people is fully opposed to human intervention in environmental matters), but… it just never really seemed to fully make sense, because it turned out that the culprits didn’t even really morally/financially/politically oppose what they were doing, but were trying to prevent anyone finding out about this plastic-eating bacteria (something that already existed, not something that could be prevented from existing) for… reasons?

This does feel like it’s probably a book that is much more for someone else, but was unfortunately not for me to the degree that I’d hoped. The good aspects were very good, but I didn’t fully mesh with the style, and by the time I felt a bit more engaged, it was just a little too late. I will say that it didn’t quite feel like anything else I’ve read, and that was in and of itself a cool thing.

This is so very Current Contemporary Romance, haha. But perfectly respectable.
Game Changer by Rachel Reid
Book 1 of Game Changers
2018
M/M Romance (hockey romance) - ebook novel
3.5/5

It’s a complete surprise to Kip Grady when hockey star Scott Hunter comes into the smoothie shop where he works. It’s even more of a surprise when Scott keeps coming back. It’s something out of his wildest dreams when Scott turns out to be just as interested in Kip as he is in the smoothies he’s been buying.
Scott Hunter has had the sort of rags-to-riches story and professional success that makes him a beloved captain of the New York Admirals hockey team. He’s also deeply closeted. He knows that coming out—becoming the very first out gay NHL player—could jeopardize his career, so he’s resigned himself to a life spent mostly alone… until Kip.
Kip understands why Scott doesn’t want to come out, and initially he’s fine with it. As their relationship deepens into something that feels like a lot more than just a fun fling, it becomes a lot harder to deal with. How long can he stand keeping a relationship with the man he loves a secret? And for Scott, is it worth risking everything else for a chance at happiness with Kip?

My thoughts, minor spoilers that shouldn’t be a major surprise:

This book was… Fine. Which seems to be the usual reaction to it. I’m told the series experiences a pretty drastic increase in writing quality (which I would say is borne out by the ~~20% 60% or so I’ve read of the second book so far.~~ Never mind, I’ve finished it, lol. Definitely a vast difference in quality!)

The good:
The relationship between Scott and Kip is sweet. They’re cute, and of course I wanted things to work out for them. They have some fun banter. The sex did not make me cringe.
The conflict (Scott being closeted and not wanting to risk his career vs Kip’s desire to live his life openly) wasn’t astoundingly deep, but it was a believable conflict, even if it felt like a very foregone conclusion that of course Scott is going to risk it to be with Kip.
While I felt like it moved a bit too quick in terms of the timeframe, I did like Kips move from “I can be fine with this! I totally understand, and I’m just happy to get what’s on offer while the relationship lasts!” to “Well… hopefully it won’t be quite like this forever. But I can be patient, it’s fine if this is how it has to be…” to “I can’t actually handle being a secret hidden from the world, and having to hide aspects of my own life at all times with no end in sight.” I feel like it’s relatable to go through that arc of being willing to deal with something at the exciting start of a relationship, only to realize after a while that you actually can’t handle it forever once the more day-to-day reality starts to wear on you. (And it’s certainly a common feeling in the case of one member of a relationship being closeted, and the other not being able to openly be with them!)
As kind of a burnout who squandered my potential and “most likely to do something great in our field” undergrad award, Kip’s anxiety about feeling like a failure next to his more successful friends and partner was a little too relatable… sadly I don’t think I’m destined for quite the easy “as soon as I apply myself I can enter my own success arc” that he got, but it’s nice wish fulfillment, haha.

The neutral:
I know that there was some “controversy” over this book, in that it was allegedly posted as an AU fic to AO3, where the author got feedback, and then eventually pulled it to officially publish it. Rather than an example of “serial numbers filed off,” it allegedly started as an original work and then had Steve/Bucky serial numbers pasted on to solicit feedback in a big fandom, and then peeled ‘em back off for publishing. Also allegedly the author has expressed some regret for doing so.
I don’t know the definite details of the situation, and certainly haven’t read or personally seen definite proof of the fanfic version, but it absolutely felt like an AU fic for a popular ship in a big fandom. (And it felt specifically like AUs of the characters allegedly in question… which makes me vaguely skeptical that it truly started as NOT fic. Even if I’d never heard about the fic thing, I think I would have had suspicions, despite MCU being emphatically NOT my fandom!) Regardless, it did feel like reading fanfic. To me that’s a neutral observation: I love AU fics, and this is absolutely the sort I would stay up scrolling through late into the night. It’s competently structured, if not revolutionary, and it does make for a breezy read if not a terribly unique or deep one.
The whole love at first sight thing is cute enough, but isn’t really something I connect with. That’s a me problem and an understood standard of the genre, so it doesn’t bother me. It’s just not something that does much for me.

The bad:
The fanfic vibes aren’t bad, but they do make the story feel slightly generic. Even a fairly generic fic can borrow some depth from the canon, or just the reader’s knowledge of the characters and how the fic’s presentation conforms or differs. In this case, it feels like it’s built a bit on that framework… but without actually having a canon for the reader to use as a base. A little bit with the mains, but especially with some of the secondary characters, it feels like I’m supposed to recognize them and already have some built-in characterization that just isn’t there.
I also felt like I kept waiting for something to happen, a sort of “other shoe to drop” moment that was external to the relationship, but would impact them. Particularly with the player who was kicked off the team and had been an asshole prior… I really expected he was going to try to blackmail someone or out Scott or something… but no.
I mentioned it above, but while I liked Kip’s emotional progression, the story happened over such a short period of time that it felt a little difficult to take as seriously as I wanted to. I like the arc… but experiencing it over the course of a few weeks or even a couple months feels too fast/makes Kip’s legitimate feelings come across as a little bit impatient.

I am glad to have gotten the heads up that the series apparently improves (and I really liked book two!), because while I liked this book well enough, the rest of the series would likely have languished on the TBR. This certainly wouldn’t have turned me off from reading more, but wouldn’t have pushed the rest up to priority status either.

A nicely ominous and threatening cover.
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
2019
Sci-fi/Horror - f/f - physical novel - read with Alex
5/5

Gyre has been hired for an extended caving mission, mapping out a large cave system on her colony planet, presumably for mining interests. She may have falsified most of her qualifications and work history, but considering both the pay and the quality of the gear she was being provided with, Gyre was confident that it meant the mission would come with a strong support team to help. She was sure she'd be able to make it successfully through the mission... and to the high payout waiting on the other side.
Instead, there is no team at all. Her only support in the cave is Em, monitoring her from aboveground... the woman in charge of the mission entirely. Em has complete control over Gyre, including taking control over her caving suit, administering drugs, and even manipulating her displays to control what she sees. As Gyre continues the mission, more and more details start to seem strange: supply caches gone missing, unexpected changes to the cave system, and discovering just how many attempts have been made prior to Gyre’s. Soon it starts to feel like she's not alone. It’s become clear that she can’t truly trust Em… but the longer she’s in the cave, the less sure she is that she can even trust herself.

My thoughts, vague spoilers, plus mention of a fake spoiler:

I still really enjoyed this one!
A lot of my feelings are the same as they were when I read this one last year.
I love the sense of Gyre’s increasing paranoia as the isolation gets to her, and as she discovers more about Em’s motives. Parts of it are so extremely justified, while others are clearly extremely irrational. I enjoy seeing the ways it makes Gyre act, even when she’s making terrible, self-sabotaging decisions.
This is also still, I think, one of the best examples of escalating problems that I’ve read. Every new issue that Gyre encounters feels horrible and often near-insurmountable. Once each thing is resolved, a new problem arises, that feels equally horrible and insurmountable. Even on a reread, knowing what’s ultimately going to happen, the early challenges didn’t feel small. There’s a bit of an “if you only knew what was to come!” sense, but the danger still always feels and is quite real. Those early-cave problems could still have killed Gyre just as dead as the worse ones she has to face later on.
(There’s frequent advice I see about writing, that says “imagine the worst thing that could happen to your character, and then do it to them. And keep doing it the whole story.” I mostly hate that advice, maybe because I’m just too literal, because for me the worst thing is that a meteor comes down and kills my protagonist and everyone they love and the story is over in a way that satisfied nothing. But this! This feels like an example of taking that advice and actually managing it. And it’s also satisfying to read, rather than just feeling like unrelenting misery.)
I still love Gyre and Em and the way they play off of each other. They are clear foils for each other, in what their various (similar) obsessions have led them to do. I like the progression of their relationship, including the times that it regresses, and they lose the ground they’ve gained. I guess these are the “toxic lesbians” that people either love or hate. They’re messy and fucked up and both terrible and wonderful for each other. I want them to work everything out and live happily ever after, but know that it’s still going to be fucked, and I love that.

I will say that I kind of liked that this time I was not anticipating a twist that wasn’t going to happen. For some reason (probably my own fault for misunderstanding something, but my memory is that someone outright stated this in a rec, and I was at the time annoyed that it was an unmarked spoiler,) I had been “spoiled” for the “twist” that Em was an AI controlling Gyre’s suit. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. I can see ways that the start feels like that could be what it’s setting up, but it’s not! I was glad that I didn’t spend the first half of the book anticipating a non-existent twist.

The first time I read it, one of the things I said I liked was the ambiguity of the source of the things happening in the cave. Many are given physical, literal explanations: hallucinogenic fungus, psychological distress, [redacted spoiler], impacts from the alien Tunnelers. However, it felt to me like there was some ambiguity regarding whether there was something paranormal at work. This time… it felt less ambiguous. I think the book does come down on the “everything had an explanation” side, but… I kind of like the idea of there being something paranormal to the cave as well. It’s still an arguable point, I think, but I think on the reread I have to say there’s less support for that reading.

Bonus short story that I read:

The image accompanying the short story. I love me some intricate, fractal-esque organic images.
“Constellations” by Jeff VanderMeer
2026
Science fiction/horror - online short story
Published by MIT Technology Review: here (This is theoretically a non-paywalled link.)
4.5/5

When their ship crash lands on a remote planet, only the narrator, their ship’s badly-wounded captain, the astrogator, and the ship’s AI survive. The group sets off for distant domes they can see, feeling confident that reaching them will provide some sort of salvation. On their journey, they encounter more and more remains of other astronauts, of many, many species, who seem to have undertaken the same post-disaster journey.

My brief thoughts, slight spoilers:

This was a fun, short read. Very aesthetically similar to Scavengers Reign in a lot of ways. (The proliferation of strange life within the suit of a dead astronaut?* Amazing. Perfect Scavengers Reign vibes.)
I love me an unreliable narrator, and I really love the variation of “narrator that slowly begins to realize that something may be forcing unreliability and he is concerned.”
Definitely a “wouldn’t it be fucked up if…” story. I am left wanting to understand the mystery, and yet glad not to.

*I am now wondering if this short story has anything to do with the author’s novel Dead Astronauts, which is on the TBR. I don’t think so, and when he shared it he didn’t say anything to that effect.

Bonus bonus short stories:
These were written by my younger sibling, so I am clearly not unbiased, but I loved them both!

“America’s Darling” by Terramythos/Kezona
2025
Dystopian horror - online short story
On Taylor’s substack

Musings on the perfection of America, as exemplified by Darling, America’s Dog. Things are so much better now than they ever used to be!

(Fairly sure this was inspired at least in part by mentioning that Bella has to be called an “All-American Dog” when she competes, because the AKC doesn’t recognize her breed, haha.)

I love this one, and think it has a very classic skin-crawling creepiness of good classic spec-fic/horror.

“Just a Deer” by Terramythos/Kezona
2026
Horror - online short story
On Taylor’s substack

A man in a bar recounts a close call on the road. It was just a deer.

Just a deer. :) This one isn’t super overt horror, just that sort of slow creepiness of something not as it should be.

Reading goals for 2026:
- Read 50 books (21/50)
- Read more genre classics (Tolkien, Le Guin, Pratchett) (3/x)
- Reread the Murderbot Diaries (0/8)
- Read the 2025 Pride ebook bundle (5/14)
- Read some short story collections (1/x)

So far, I have finished two additional books in May:
- Return of the King
- Heated Rivalry

I am currently reading four books:
- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, which is my main read, and was my “TBR Book of choice” that I picked, having finished Lord of the Rings
- The Forward collection of short stories as my ebook side-read
- Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, my co-read with Alex
- What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher, my co-read with Taylor

My plans for what to read next:
- Fallen, from the Pride bundle
- A Wizard of Earthsea , starting on some Le Guin with the Earthsea books
- All Systems Red, starting the Murderbot Diaries reread
- A Necessary Chaos, from the Pride bundle
- Artificial Condition, continuing Murderbot
- A House With Good Bones
- For ebook side-reads, I might continue with the Game Changer books, or I might switch between those and something else. We’ll see where the vibes are at.

My TBR list is up to a distressing 758 books, driven at least partially by yet another Humble Bundle. This one was for a set of anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow.

I keep gazing at my TBR list (either the shorter one I have up on LibraryThing or the full one in a document on my laptop) like my own “do it for her” sort of board, lol.

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Snow, Bella, and Miscellany:

2026-05-07T01:45:07Z

This morning.

It was 80° in February. :/

(Yes, yes, ~we need the moisture~, but I'd be perfectly happy never seeing another snowflake, and this winter where we had barely any snow at all was the happiest winter I've ever had. Could it not have had the decency to fall as RAIN? The number of broken branches in the surrounding neighborhoods makes me so sad.)

Bella would like to know who allowed such a thing.

(To be fair, if I must be: the moisture in the mountains was extremely needed (31 inches in Estes, allegedly!), the roads never got bad down here, by the later afternoon the roads were basically dry, and while we're supposed to have a hard freeze overnight, we're supposed to be back to 70° tomorrow.)

Speaking of Bella wondering who allows things, she had her annual vet visit yesterday! (We'd had to reschedule from a couple weeks ago, after a construction mishap on the building led to flooding.) We saw a different vet than usual, the daughter of our long-term family vet. I remain relieved that she's likely going to take over the practice once Dr. Kim retires completely.
(There are so few options for non-chain vets around here. :/ VCA/Sploot/Chewy have devoured most of them.)

Everything looks good! She got her lepto shot, we got six months of heartworm prevention, she got her physical, the vet looked at her eye freckle and agrees that it does not look concerning. She's good for another year! <3

Bella, just blending in with the plushies.

A couple more pictures of Bella:

Sometimes she knocks a plushie out of the basket, but then she just snuggles it, ha.

Bendy Bella and her bendy s-curve spine. (But I thought the little heart on the mushroom plush next to her was cute.)

And then some random pictures:

On one of my walks at work, late last month, a really cool hawk! (There were actually two of them, and I got to watch them for a little while. It was a very windy day, so they were just coasting pretty close by. For a short time they were even right at eye-level, since the path hugs the top of a hill, and they were below the drop-off. Unfortunately I wasn't quite fast enough with the camera to catch them there!)

Two more pictures:

This is just a weird camera glitch, but it ended up looking cool! ~Spooky ghost hawks~ (And a background Red Rocks.)

A ladybug!

And one totally random image from grocery shopping:

Ah yes, the devil's meat.

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Habit Tracking: Week 18 (April 26 - May 02)

2026-05-05T23:29:35Z

This week, a little crow with a moon and some orchids. From GlitterPunk's corvid designs.

This was a pretty good week. It was sort of a rough start to the week, with Alex not feeling well one day, and surprise having to replace my debit card the next. Still, I did get a lot of what I'd hoped to done, including several responsible things and quite a bit of reading. The short work week for the festival was nice too, and the festival itself was a lot of fun!

Goals for the week:

I did read quite a lot of Return of the King
We went to Ritual Noize Fest on Saturday
I rescheduled my dermatology appointment
Alex rescheduled Bella's vet appointment
I scheduled my blood work redo
I mostly finished writing my April reviews
I did post about my May writing goals/the lack thereof
I took and shared pictures of my pin boards
I cleaned my cube bookshelf
I finished reading Game Changer
I reorganized my tote bag
I did not put together a hiking first-aid kit
I renewed my OTW membership for the year (right under the drive deadline)
I talked to my mom about Mother's Day plans, even if it turned out to be a "wait and see"
I did not work on my reading page
We did not pay rent
I did my getyourwordsout check-in: 9829 words for April, bring ytd to 44657
I attended a CSA meeting at work on Wednesday
I got a new debit card after mine vanished (Alex thinks it fell out of his pocket)

Tracked habits:

Work - 4/7 - I took Saturday off
Household Maintenance - 4/7
Physical Activity - 6/7 - one additional day of only a little
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
Non-fiction Writing - 3/7 - one day of over 1000 words, two days of over 500 words, three additional days of under 500 words
Meta Work - 2/7
Personal Writing - 5/7
Other Creative Things - 2/7
Reading - 7/7 - mostly I read Return of the King, though I finished Game Changer and started Heated Rivalry; Alex and I finished The Luminous Dead
Attention to Media - 6/7 - Sunday we watched some paranormal videos; Monday and Tuesday had storm chasing in the background; Wednesday had a random assortment in the background; Thursday had background game videos; Friday a mix of paranormal and game videos.
Video Games - 0/7
Social Interaction - 6/7

Total words written: 3289 on reviews and plans

This is also the last week in this notebook!

This was a nice notebook! I started using it in August of 2024, through all of 2025, and now it's full in May of 2026.

My next notebook is a dot-grid one, which also has a quite small grid, so I'll possibly be playing with my page layouts a little bit... But we'll see! It'll probably stay similar, just smaller, so I may have room to add... something?

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More FastCATs!

2026-05-04T03:30:09Z

This weekend was another FastCAT event! Alex took Bella on Friday, but since I took this weekend off for the music festival, I got to come to another set of runs today!

Bella today! Alex said it looks like her school picture or something, haha.

Her times from Friday! She got her second-best time ever! :D

Her times from today. Not her best, but that's okay.

Bella didn't seem as hyped as Alex says she usually is for her runs today, but I was still glad to get to go to one!

I released her for the first run today, with Alex waiting to catch her at the finish line. ...unfortunately, she faceplanted at the start line, haha. I don't think she slipped, so much as her head was just a little more excited to go than her legs, so she just faceplanted, and plowed her way forward for the first several paces before she got her legs back under her. I was impressed that she still kept it under 11 seconds!

The second run Alex let her go and I caught her, but she just didn't have quite as much oomph as she sometimes does.

The grass on the course was quite lush and green (despite our lack of moisture), and I think that provided just a little extra drag. She did come back with grass stains all over her paws and ankles, ha. She also could have been a little sore from her runs on Friday, followed by a long day in her kennel yesterday while we were gone. Not so sore that she was gimpy, obviously, but maybe just enough to keep her from hitting the highest gear.) She still had fun, ha.

(The festival last night was a lot of fun, but it's going to take me a while to sort through the way too many pictures I took. Other than Bella's FastCAT runs today, I spent a lot of the day sleeping and a bit of it reading; I am wiped out and sore. Feeling old!)

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Writing Goals/Calendar: May 2026

2026-05-02T01:53:49Z

...There aren't any.

I mentioned a bit ago, I think on one of my habit tracking posts, but I've pretty much decided to pause the attempts to work on anything writing-wise for a bit.

This feels kind of silly, because it feels like all I've done is take a break. I haven't had anything new completed in two years as of this month. Over the course of those couple years I have taken a few true breaks, but usually with a pretty immediate eye to getting back to "full speed" as soon as possible, or trying to lessen my expectations but still chug away at things in the background. Sometimes I've decided to take a break and then I do start to feel a little bit excited for at least the idea of writing again, so then I try to immediately seize that scrap of motivation, just to strangle it, haha.

Unfortunately... it just hasn't worked. Writing has started to feel like a slog, and pushing through has just made it feel more so, not less. I'd hoped it was a temporary hurdle to get over, but it's been months of just feeling worse. It's gotten to the point where I dread having it on my weekly goals list; I feel perpetually guilty and disappointed in myself for not doing more, but also having a terrible time with everything I do attempt. I find myself dragging my feet on everything else I have to do at home, because once I get other stuff done, I'll "have" to work on writing, and I don't want to. Having it be a thing I am so actively unhappy about doing is... really not great.

This is supposed to be something I like and want to do!

(This is a hobby. I do not have a paycheck riding on it, or deadlines looming. I have kind of beat myself up about "if you WERE doing this as a real job, you wouldn't have the luxury of taking a break, so you better get back to it!" But no.)

I'm happy about how much more I've been reading (and hope to get back into some more games, which I haven't touched for the last couple weeks.) I am still hoping that the increased media intake will unlock some bit of inspiration, either on a new idea that I can be super excited for, or to wake up my interest in an older idea that I've crapped out on.

But for now... I'm trying to really, for reals, actually take a break. No expectations about how fast I can get back to it. No goals for how despite the break, I'm still going to get xyz done by the end of the month. No "I'm not writing, but I should be spending my quiet moments trying to plan things out." And if and when I start to realize that I at least wish I was writing again, I'm going to actively try not to smother the interest! I do hope that eventually the interest and excitement will be back, but I think I need to stop chasing it. It seems like I'm scaring it away, haha.

So... yeah. The plan for this month (and an undetermined number of months beyond) is to... not have a plan.

And we'll see how that goes!

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Upcoming Festival!

2026-05-01T02:15:35Z

This Saturday is Ritual Noize Fest, a first-time local goth/industrial music festival that I am very excited for!

I'm especially excited for Whorticulture, a local band that I do really like, and Aesthetic Perfection.

I really wish that the lineup still looked like it originally did:

Sadly, VNV Nation had to cancel due to Ronan's ongoing health issues. (Apparently he's doing much better, but traveling overseas ~~to an uncivilized country~~ is a risk that he and his doctor agree he shouldn't take, just in case.)

This was supposed to be the first real Voicecoil show of the year, and we were all looking forward to it. It's still really heartbreaking that there won't ever be another Voicecoil show. I miss you, Mark.

As excited as I am for the festival, it's definitely also feeling really bittersweet, because it should have been a chance to hang out with my friend, celebrating him getting to be part of a really cool lineup. The lineup remains cool... but I'm not hanging out with my friend, and I really wish I was. </3 Still, it should be a good time, and I am looking forward to it!

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Pin boards:

2026-04-30T02:41:29Z

My most frivolous collectible thing that I like to amass is...

Enamel pins!

And I've finally gotten basically all of my current ones onto display boards. (I don't have the wall space to hang the boards on, but that's beside the point.)

My "gothy" pins. Several "creepy curio" type ones, a bunch of band ones, a few dark folklore inspired ones... Many of these are among my favorites.
(The backing material is an old lace shirt that didn't fit well.)

These ones are sort of a mix of naturalist and historical. Some paleo art ones over to the right, and the ones above and to the left of those are based on tattoos of a recovered ice mummy. Lots of cool and mildly spooky insect ones. Some sea creatures. I just like 'em.
(The backing material is a flannel that I purchased years ago without a real plan for.)

This one looks a little busy, but also includes a lot of my favorites. This board is the bulk of my queer-themed pins and the majority of my book-related pins, and quite a few that are both. Underneath my art friends' Atomic Tarot pins, I really like my set of October Daye preorder pins. Also a fan of the various corvids. Also the cat ones at the bottom, though they aren't very clear, and I'll have to get a better picture of them sometime. Also the "proud to the bone" pins, the various skulls with flower crowns.
(The backing is an old t-shirt that eventually had too many holes in it for even a sleep shirt. But an Edward Gorey illustration with cats and books seemed like a good backdrop for the book-themed pins.)

This one clearly has the most room left, but is nebulously all the geeky or nerdy pins I have that don't count as bookish. Especially fond of kawree's Hot Monster Summer Kingdom Hearts pins. And a couple of my fave OT3 pins from zine projects. And also also my Over the Garden Wall pins (and some generic Halloween ones.)
(The backing is obviously another old t-shirt. RIP Firefly merch.)

This one is my Everything Else board, though it's getting fairly full, so they'll start spilling over to others. Lots of these are from the Atomic Pixies, a few are souvenirs, some are other fun designs that just don't quite fit on other boards. I am a big fan of Sleipnir, the little gingerbread horse skeleton, The More You No jackalope, and the fancy year of the dragon/year of the snake pins up in the upper right. Also all the rest.
(The backing is Halloween fabric I bought at one point. I think this one I did maybe have plans for, but whatever those plans were didn't happen, ha.)

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Tuesday, April 21: Matthews/Winters Park

2026-04-29T03:53:00Z

Last Tuesday, we also went on a hike!

It was a pretty warm day, but a nice one for a walk. Alex wanted to go to Red Rocks, but there was a show that night, so the park was closed early. Instead we went to Matthews/Winters, which is a county park that borders Red Rocks. We've been there several times before. It's a bittersweet place for me, because we went there with Cy a lot, and it's the first hike we went on after he passed away.

The landscape.

It's Bella!

Twelve more pictures:

The water was definitely very low in the creek, but it was flowing.

Bella laying on the bridge over the creek.

There's a short little path that follows the creek upstream, so we went up that way first.

Looking back downstream.

There's a little "fort" of sorts set up, so of course had Bella sit in it.

We joke it's not a hike if there's not a picture of Bella sticking her tongue out.

A dandelion.

Chokecherries.

Back over the bridge and up the main path, the start is an uphill section... that basically always kicks my ass. It's not that steep, but man, I feel like I'm dying by the time I get to the top.

The short walk I'm trying to do a couple times a day at work does have an uphill section, which I certainly still feel when I do it, but I'm hoping that's going to help my ability to handle even relatively gentle inclines. (I can walk basically forever on a flat or downhill path, but the instant I'm moving uphill? I'm dying.)

I think it was a little easier for me to do this time? I was still struggling a little, but not quite as badly as I remember? So maybe the walks are helping my endurance, haha.

Tiny ant on an aster.

Up at the top of the loop is the Mount Vernon cemetery. I of course take pictures of it every time we go, even though I have pictures from every other time we've been.

The two stones are the only marked burials, though there are supposedly others in the cemetery. The cemetery is the only thing left of the town of Mount Vernon.

A cactus with a hole through it!

Then poor Bella had a no good very bad day. She drank water a little too fast, and immediately threw up. She was doing okay after that, until we got about 2/3 of the way through the loop. Then she stepped on a red ant, which bit her. She spent the whole rest of the walk kicking and biting at her foot, because I know it had to still be stinging. Ant bites suck! When we got back to the start she stood in the cold water of the creek, and that seemed to help soothe it.

A late blooming apple tree.

(I was busy trying to take a picture of the flowers, and missed getting to see a tiny snake that Alex spotted. Happy for first snake of the year, bummed I didn't see it!)

Then back at the car, Alex noticed I had a hitchhiker!

The tiniest inchworm! I let her go back in the grass.

After that, we went to get ice cream, as a local ice cream parlor was doing a fundraiser for my old high school. I got a "kid's" size of vanilla ice cream for Bella... They packed so much in there, lol. So suddenly it was back to being the best day ever, and the ant bite seemed entirely forgotten.

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Habit Tracking: Week 17 (April 19 - April 25)

2026-04-28T02:22:56Z

This week is a sticker from Sunset Road's "Celestial Cottagecore" designs.

This was a decent week. I ended it feeling better than when it started; I started the week feeling like I was struggling against a cloud of depression, just not really wanting to do anything. Feelings improved as the week went on, and ended up feeling fairly good about what we did: happy that we went out on decent walks/hikes on both my days off, I did almost everything on my to-do list, I got quite a bit of reading done.

Goals for the week:

I did call my insurance company (supposedly my referral to dermatology will be fine)
I did finish reading Be the Sea
I worked on my reviews
I did not work on my reading page
I did clean up my plushie baskets, at least a bit
I dusted my small bookshelf
We went to a fundraiser for my old high school at a local ice cream place
I watered my plants
We went and got crickets
I started reading Return of the King
I paid our car insurance

Tracked habits:

Work - 5/7
Household Maintenance - 5/7
Physical Activity - 7/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
Non-fiction Writing - 1/7 - over 500 words, plus one day of less than 500
Meta Work - 1/7
Personal Writing - 3/7
Other Creative Things - 2/7
Reading - 7/7 - I finished Be the Sea, started Return of the King, continued Game Changer, and Alex and I read some of The Luminous Dead
Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday we watched the first two episodes of season two of Fallout; Monday had various videos on in the background; Tuesday had some game videos in the background; Wednesday we watched two more episodes of Fallout; Thursday had storm chasing and then game videos in the background; Friday we watched two more episodes of Fallout; Saturday had more storm chasing in background.
Video Games - 0/7
Social Interaction - 5/7

Total words written: 683 words

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Monday, April 20: Harriman Lake

2026-04-25T02:08:13Z

Monday was a lovely day, and we wanted to take advantage of it. We decided to go to Harriman Lake, one of the local parks. We were surprised that the water level wasn't as low as we expected it to be.

A woodpecker apartment complex. So many holes!

Chokecherry flowers.

Seven more pictures from the walk:

Have a set of too-distant birds, haha:

A flicker! (On the branch toward the center.)

A meadowlark! (So bright yellow!)

Ducks!

Taylor and I agree that this looks like a Myst puzzle.

Dead tree, and you can see some nest material up at the top.

I like that this tree has fallen over, but is still growing. The little branch like a mini tree in the middle I like especially.

A small, late-blooming tree.

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Miscellaneous pictures:

2026-04-23T03:03:43Z

Have a handful of pictures from the last couple weeks!

Most of these are from my walks that I'm trying to take, though there are some random other ones mixed in.

Lilacs!

Bella, looking like a little croissant snuggling her blanket.

Nine more pictures:

More lilacs!

Interesting tree flowers.

Bee on a dandelion!

Moth disguised as bird poop on a dandelion! With bonus tiny ant that I didn't notice until later.

It made me smile that it looked like the magpie came up to get his order at the window.

I was very taken with just how intensely blue the sky was.

Purple flowers!

Little green stink bug.

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Habit Tracking: Week 16 (April 12 - April 18)

2026-04-21T01:40:03Z

Silver and blue moth.

This was a pretty successful week in terms of what I got done, but I didn't ever really feel very good about it. I did my medical appointment, but it just left me in dread of all the stuff I have left to do. I did some cleaning and errands and things, which was good. I did okay on reading. I decided to pretty much take a break entirely from writing, because it's just become an exercise in increasing misery that I dread attempting, so I feel relieved not to be trying to do it, but also guilty for not doing it. Work was fine. I got my pin boards mostly put together, which is nice - I've been trying to get that done for months. Mostly... I wish I felt better about the week.

Goals for the week:

I did go to my doctor appointment
Alex made Bella's vet appointment... which then got cancelled due to construction issues
I did finish reading The Two Towers
I started reading Be the Sea
I worked on my reviews
I did not work on the WIP outline, and indeed decided to just stop trying at this point
I did work on my reading page
I went to my work meeting on Saturday
I got crickets
I watered my plants
I cleaned the window blinds
I cleaned the window sill
I finished paying my hospital bill
I worked on putting my pin boards together

Habit tracking:

Work - 5/7
Household Maintenance - 2/7
Physical Activity - 5/7, plus one day where I tried to do an indoor walk because it was snowing
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
Non-fiction Writing - 2/7, both over 500 words, but with three additional days of under 500 words
Meta Work - 2/7
Personal Writing - 3/7
Other Creative Things - 2/7
Reading - 7/7 - I finished reading The Two Towers, started Be the Sea, read a little bit of Game Changer, and a short story. Alex and I read some of The Luminous Dead.
Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday watched some game videos; Monday had some storm chasing in the background; Tuesday had storm chase and later game videos; Wednesday through Friday had game videos in the background; Saturday watched a paranormal video, some explore videos, then game videos.
Video Games - 1/7
Social Interaction - 6/7 - I accidentally filled in a box that I shouldn't have

Total words written: 2322 on reviews

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Can I just have to do things once??

2026-04-16T02:04:20Z

For the last month or so, we've been getting increasingly urgent emails and phone calls and one postcard from the vet's office to get Bella scheduled for her annual check-up. We kept remembering that we needed to do it at times that they weren't open - evenings, weekends, etc.

So on Monday, while I was at my appointment, Alex called to make Bella's appointment! We were set for next week!

...And then yesterday construction on the building Went Bad, and now they have to close for a week or two for repairs.

*sigh*

But we just got everything set up...

(Everything should be fine. We'll just push the appointment out. Hopefully the repairs go well.)

For the first time in fifteen years I actually got to a check-up appointment of my own! They did blood work! I did not know they were doing blood work ahead of time!

So today I get a call asking if I have a family history of high cholesterol. I do - my mom's baseline cholesterol has always been high, though she's never experienced any negative impacts from it, and she has a very healthy diet. But they also ask if I fasted before my blood work, which I did not, because I did not anticipate blood work (even though maybe I should have), and I was not given any directions to do so. :(

So now I have to schedule NEW blood work, and fast beforehand this time. :((

But I don't want to schedule another thing, I don't want to get stabbed again, I don't want to get the same stuff my mom has been hearing for the last forty+ years about cutting things out of my diet that I mostly already don't eat. *kicking rocks*

I already have to go to two more follow-up appointments, but I also have to call my insurance to find out if those'll be covered, and I just don't WANT to do any of it.

Uuuuuuugh.

(I'll figure it out. I'll make the appointment. I'll call my insurance. I'll fast and see if that makes it look any less awful.)

I just want "finally doing the thing I was supposed to do" to be the end of that thing for a change, instead of it spawning more tasks to complete and requirements to redo the things that I planned to be done with!

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Habit Tracking: Week 15 (April 05 - April 11)

2026-04-14T02:56:01Z

This week, a sticker of the lunar lander from my friends the Atomic Pixies. Not quite the same thing, but seemed appropriate for the week of the Artemis II mission. :)

This was a decent week. It was nearly a "bingo" week (a week where I did every tracked habit at least once.) It barely misses out, because my non-fiction writing didn't hit the 500 word threshold, but it was over 400 words, so I'm sort of counting it. I also got almost everything I'd hoped to done. It was really cool getting to follow footage and coverage of the Artemis II mission throughout the week. I worked a bunch on my reading page for my tracker (since I'm about to start a new tracking notebook, I decided to redo this year's in the new book), and it's felt nice to do an artsy thing. I did a decent amount of reading, and have been lucky with enjoying all of it. I didn't do as much writing, either on reviews or on my WIP, as I'd hoped, but I did actually work on both. Work was fine. I have continued with my workday walks. Minorly dreading going to the doctor next week.

Goals for the week:

I read These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart
I started reading The Two Towers
We paid rent
I paid toward my hospital bill
I cleaned up my floor (mostly realigning and vacuuming the tower of dog beds)
I did work on my WIP outline
I did set up my reading page in the new notebook
We did go get fruit flies, but will have to get more since they were on the end of their cycle :/
I worked on my reviews
I put my laundry away
I did not vote :( It was a little special election, and I filled out my ballot, but thought I had an extra day to drop my ballot off.

Tracked habits:

Work - 5/7
Household Maintenance - 3/7
Physical Activity - 6/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 1/7 - over 500 words
Non-fiction Writing - 0/7, but with one day of under 500 words
Meta Work - 3/7
Personal Writing - 3/7
Other Creative Things - 5/7
Reading - 7/7 - I read These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart, started The Two Towers, and read some of Game Changer, as well as the short story "Constellations"; Alex and I read some of The Luminous Dead.
Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday was very slow at work, so I had book reviews in the background, then later had paranormal videos and news coverage in the background; Monday we watched coverage of Artemis II and the eclipse they got to see; Tuesday we watched news; Wednesday and Thursday had exploration and game videos on; Friday we watched the splash down of the Artemis II crew, and then later some game videos; Saturday watched paranormal then game videos.
Video Games - 1/7 - I played some more Hades and got one more successful run.
Social Interaction - 7/7

Total words written: 1047 on reviews and on my WIP

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Monday, March 30: Pelican Pond

2026-04-07T22:51:25Z

Whoops, took over a week to get to posting these, haha.

Last 'weekend' we did go on a lovely walk around Pelican Pond. The water level was a bit distressingly low, but there were pelicans! It was also perfect timing for all the blooming trees. We also saw an eagle again, though it was too high up to get a picture of.

The lake through the flowers.

There are apple trees all around the pond. They're lovely and they smell amazing.

Nine more pictures:

Kind of a pleasantly soft look against the sky.

Ladybug!

Some quite vibrant flowers from the far side of the pond.

Distant on the island, over on the left you can see the pelicans. Also plenty of other water birds.

This little falcon had a lot to say! I'm guessing it's a prairie falcon, since it's not too likely for us to have a peregrine, and it's too large to be a kestrel... but definitely more falcon- than hawk-shaped.

Bella stops to smell the flowers.

Vinca along the path.

Plus two additional pictures not from the same location:

Lovely pink flowers!

And from later in the week, on one of my workday walks. Lilacs!

It was an absolutely beautiful day to go for a walk, and I'm especially glad we got to enjoy the trees while blooming, since those are already winding down.

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